While the compression arm connectors of the present invention will be particularly described in connection with their use in the assembly of and use in disk drives, it should be understood that the compression arm connectors described and depicted herein are not to be limited thereto, since they may likewise be used in other devices.
The demand for increasing storage capacity in personal computers (PCs) has created new challenges for disk drive manufacturers. Disk drives installed in new computers must provide more storage than ever before, while at the same time maintaining costs at a minimum. Moreover, owners of existing PCs are seeking to supplement the storage capacity of their computers by adding on additional disk drives. Therefore, it is desirable to minimize the production costs of producing high-storage disk drives.
An exploded view of part of a conventional disk drive is shown in FIG. 1. A spin motor assembly 4 housing a spin motor (not shown) is mounted to the base plate 2 of the disk drive. In use a disk (not shown) is mounted to the assembly 4 so that the spin motor operates to cause the disk to rotate. While the disk is rotating, a mechanical arm (not shown) with a read/write head is positioned over the rotating disk to read data to the disk or write data from the disk. A flexible circuit 6 is used to provide the control signals to position the mechanical arm. An integrated circuit (IC) 8 serves as a serial-to-parallel port for the drive heads. A base plate header 10 provides a plurality of pins 12a which extend upward from the base plate 2 in a plane substantially perpendicular to the base plate. The flexible circuit has a mounting surface 14 with a plurality of clearance holes 16 that permit the pins 12a from the base plate header to pass through.
A circuit substrate such as printed circuit board (PCB) 18 provides the interface for data to be read to and written from the disk. Pins 12b of the base plate header 10 are coupled to PCB 18 via vertical card connector 20. Likewise, a vertical card connector (not shown) may then be connected to pins 12a to interface a second circuit substrate to PCB 18.
The spin motor is typically driven through an interface with the circuit substrate, e.g. PCB 18. Three printed conductors 22 are shown leading from three respective pins 12a to lead wires 24 associated with the spin motor (different spin motors may provide different numbers of lead wires). Each of the lead wires 24 is soldered to one of the printed conductors. The base plate 2 is typically designed with an opening or slot 26 to expose the lead wires 24.
Adding slot 26 and the printed conductors 22 require additional assembly steps and, therefore, increase the overall cost of the disk drive. Therefore, in some disk drives the lead wires 24 are exposed through the underside of the base plate 2 where the spin motor frame is secured to the base plate. The lead wires may then be soldered directly to solder pads provided on PCB 18 to drive the spin motor. Since the lead wires are soldered directly to the PCB, the PCB and the spin motor cannot be disconnected for repair or replacement without probable damage to the PCB or the spin motor.
A conventional disk drive unit is assembled by mounting the spin motor assembly in its frame to the base plate. The base plate shown in FIG. 1 has a sunken portion in which the spin motor may be placed. Alternatively, the base plate may have an aperture through which the spin motor is secured. The lead wires of the spin motor are then coupled to corresponding solder pads or printed conductors which provide the power to drive the spin motor. A base plate header is fixed to the base plate by any suitable means such as by gluing or bolting the header correctly to the base plate. A flexible circuit is attached to the base plate header by inserting the header pins into clearance holes formed within a mounting surface of the flexible circuit. A circuit substrate may then be connected to each side of the base plate header via vertical card connectors.
It should be evident that the assembly of conventional disk drives requires numerous steps in connecting many of its components. Moreover, many of these steps are manual thereby increasing the cost of production. Therefore, there is a need to eliminate some of the steps, particularly those that require manual interaction. However, in eliminating such steps care must be taken to permit repair or replacement of individual components without destroying other disk drive components.